Technically, you can't buy the Surface Pro until Saturday, February 9th, but the next version of Microsoft's tablet has already started to appear in some retail stores in the US.

One of Neowin's readers, trevor, sent us a tip revealing that when he visited his local Microsoft Store on Saturday, the employees already had the Surface Pro tablets out and were playing with them. He also said that they would go on display, but not for sale, starting today in Microsoft Store locations. He added, "And yes you can get a reservation for when they go on sale next Saturday. Looks like stores will open early, around 8 am."

Engadget has confirmed that the Surface Pro tablets have indeed started to appear in some retail stores, which will include Staples and Best Buy. WinBeta.org reports that at least some Best Buy stores are allowing people to pre-order the tablet if you purchase a $50 gift card.

Just a reminder: The 64 GB version of the Surface Pro, running on Windows 8 Pro, will be priced at $899 while the 128 GB version has a price tag of $999, although up to 45 GB of storage will be taken up by the OS, recovery partition and pre-installed software, out of the box.